Voters in the upscale town will get a chance Nov. 6 to allow three medical marijuana dispensaries. If approved, they would be the only pot retail shops on the Peninsula.

Measure C would allow three retail marijuana stores in any commercial or industrial area, including the chic shopping districts around Stanford University.

"This measure will strengthen (Palo Alto's) character by providing medicine to our terminally ill neighbors," according to the measure's chief proponents, Cassandra Moore and her husband, Thomas Moore, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The risk would be that of arrest and closure. Large dispensaries, such as Harborside in Oakland, pay thousands in legal fees to sort through the byzantine and contradictory marijuana laws.

Palo Alto, and the suburbs generally, are good places for dispensaries because they tend to have more older people, and older people tend to suffer more often from illnesses, St. Pierre said. Those patients deserve a safe, local place to buy marijuana if they need it, he said.

But many in Palo Alto say pot clubs do not fit in with the town's family-friendly ethos. The City Council voted unanimously against the measure, and several school board members and former mayors have also voiced their opposition.

"Palo Alto is a lovely residential community. We have an awful lot of young families and kids here," said Lanie Wheeler, a former mayor who works at a child care nonprofit. "Pot clubs are not compatible with that."

Stanford, home to about 16,000 students, has not taken a position on the matter, said a university spokeswoman.

Little space, high rents

Even if the measure passes, a pot club might have trouble finding space, said Russ Cohen, executive director of the downtown business association. The vacancy rate downtown is only about 2 percent, and rents are a hefty $3 per square foot.

"Personally, I wouldn't want to see a dispensary here," Cohen said. "We have a good mix right now: high-end restaurants, boutiques, bars. It doesn't seem like something medicinal would fit."